This Day in History: 1917-03-30

The 1st Battalion left Baquba in Mesopotamia at 02.00 hrs ‘a fair-sized town on both banks of the Diala with large orange-groves interspersed among the houses [and] large numbers of storks nesting on almost every roof’. Their task was to escort a howitzer battery and machine gun section to Deltawa, about 26km away. In the pitch-black night the Sapper guide lost his way and after much wandering till daylight they reached the ‘very extensive village with large gardens full of fruit-trees and date-palms, intersected by numerous canals and water channels’.

Extract from a sketch map in the Regimental history showing the places mentioned.